Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
#1: It's purpose is NOT to teach you the material. Further, none of the major review methods are meant to TEACH you the material. If that were the case you could just give Average Joe off the street a 1st aid book, two months to study, and expect him to pass. Your first 2 years in medical school are meant to teach you, everything else is a supplement.
#2: If you attempted to use FC during your second year without looking at reviews of the program and when it was recommended to be started to be most beneficial, that is your fault, not the program's.
#3: Everything contains "superfluous" material. The most concise resource we have is 1st aid, which doesn't even cover everything. By definition, anything that isn't on your exam is extraneous information. How exactly do you want everyone to narrow things down for you? The program is meant to be thorough and never once said that every single thing is guaranteed to be on your exam. There is a high yield option on FC for people that don't want to deal with all the extra material due to a lack of time, the extra info not fitting in the structured schedule... or laziness.
1st aid content is student based as well... I guess we should get rid of that as a recommended source as well?
Actually it seems like you got off on the wrong side of the bed.
I never maintained that FA was ta comprehensive source. Actually I'm pretty positive if you gave Joe Average FA and asked him to memorize everything and Joe Average had the minimum IQ to be a doctor then Joe Average is fairly qualified. This assumes he spent adequate time on FA. And no 2 months time is not enough. Give him a year plust UWorld and yes.
Medical knowledge is not what separates medical doctors from the layperson. If that were the case then we would all start med school after high school- like most of the world. Instead, in the US, medicine is understood to be a privilege that requires dedication and hardwork. Both of which are tested by the years necessary in UG to get through into med school. There is also the acumen component- hence the MCAT.
There are sources out there that when taken together are comprehensive enough to ace the USMLE and provide you with adequate knowledge to start off well as a doctor- Kaplan comprehensive+ high yield anatomy+ usmleroadmap anatomy+ high yield mol bio + FA + pathoma+ goljan path+ UWorld
Make what you will of the rigor of that but those are all review sources and a combination of them is fine- and really Kaplan comprehensive on its own is just fine plus qbanks to gain repetition.
I think you are fooling yourself if you think the material "taught" in med school is what separates you or anyone from the general public. that material you learn you will barely remember at the end of each year. By fourth year the only material you will retain is whatever you've managed to keep up with for your USMLE studies. FC will help with that - assuming people start early with it.
Most people actually do see FC is a primary learning tool. In fact a lot of people purchase it during usmle prep at the start of second year hoping to use it throughout. In fact, FC primarily advertises itself as a USMLE prep tool- in its advertisements and so forth. maybe its changing now- but it was exactly advertised as such a year ago.
Furthermore- FC is a pointless tool to use if you intend to continue with it for 2 years. Whatever material you memorize can easily be reviewed understood and retained with repetition at the start of your second year with other sources like Kaplan comprehensive that offer a better way to learn- understand the material deeply- apply it to concepts NOT in FC or FA and profit long term. Whereas FC for two years will make you very good at regurgitating facts from FC and no guarantee that material will help u understand concepts long term.
If you think using it in conjunction with say your renal physio is beneficial realize that the physiology in FC is so limited you might as well not bother with it since so many key concepts are skipped by it and whatever you learned in renal physio during school will simply be lost since its neither covered nor explained in FC. Go ahead and open your brs physio book and read the renal chapter- then compare it with what you learned in FC.
The idea of spaced learning is excellent. its precisely what I am using except with kaplan comprehensive and self maintained. The problem with FC spaced learning is that you are retaining only FC facts as opposed to synthesizing concepts.
Finally, the idea that if the material is not on the exam is superflous is stupid. USMLE has a pdf that includes in broad and specific headings everything you need to cover. So just because its not tested on your test doesnt mean its extraneous. It just wasnt tested that day. so "by definition" whats extraneous is whats not covered by those topics. Nothing like a strawman argument.
Finally, you've missed my point. FC has material- im not saying its not testable. I'm saying they've chosen material at the expense of more HIGH YIELD material they should HAVE included. How do I know? By doing UWorld, USMLERX, and Kaplan qbanks. So please, do tell me why they included material on Binswanger's but conveniently ignored Homer Rosette pseudorosettes for brain cancer when it is far more high yield (on 2 of the qbanks and in two high yield path resources- brs and goljan)?
The issue here is not just content- but the amount of time- exceptional time- needed to cover FC yet not having its comprehensiveness be commensurate with the time involved to learn
